With Wings As Eagles: Craig P. Steffen's Blog

All the bits need to be cleaned

2012 February 09 23:03

My vintage Beetle is running really well. The carb is performing consistently, and the electronic timing has been completely trouble-free. Now I'm just waiting out the winter and building up a supply of spare parts before I take it out on the road.

So in addition to the one in the car, I want to have a spare carburetor to take along, just in case. When I'm making a thousand-mile trip, I don't have to stop in the middle somewhere and have to rebuild a carb. I have a spare distributor, and fuel pump, and some other stuff, but I only have one carburetor at the moment that runs well.

I have a 34PICT-4 carburetor, which I had re-bushed but when I put it on the car last it didn't idle right. I suspect there's something crusty down inside somewhere. I bought a can of carburetor dip, so I'm goingo dip the chassis to see if I can dissolve whatever's in there and get the passages cleaned out. It's an original German one, which I'm told are very good quality and shouldn't have manufacturing defects.

First the carb all together.

The major pieces, dis-assembled.

All the bits that came off.

The jets and stuff in a bowl ready to be soaked in carb cleaner.

The main hull again.

I'll grab one of the other carbs first and dip them, just in case the dipping compound attacks the material of the carburetor body.